like, how do you really approach the average american and just like, empathetically convey that they need to raze this fucking barn
i mean especially the groups out there who historically had some level of buy-in to the system and are in denial about their exclusion - like what is the metaphorical eye-piece nada can force onto their eyes to see the basic truth: we gonna have to do something unpleasant to change this sitch
If I had to try to break it down simply to get libs across the line, or at least onto the fence, I’d try to go if > then statements that seek agreement, then push into the next line of argument. Something like:
Putting it under spoiler tag cos it’s a bit long, maybe even self indulgent:
spoiler
How many things has the US professed to want to solve, but failed. With all the wealth and power in the world. Poverty is worsening, the climate is collapsing, life expectancy is declining. If this is supposedly the ‘best of all alternatives’ and if free market capitalism is meant to organically solve thorny problems, why hasn’t it?
Then, how have other countries actually managed to make an impact, and not just Nordic ‘socialism’ but reportedly autocratic enemies of the state. Why does Cuba have better universal preventative medical care and literacy? How is China already ahead of its stated decarbonisation goals? How was Vietnam able to quash covid while the USA spiralled?
Every stated aspiration of the USA (health, wealth and liberty) is realised by other nations, but never recognised by the US political establishment. It has the power and the wealth, so if had the will, it could achieve all these things. So the only conclusion is that it doesn’t have the will.
Why doesn’t it have the will? Because the system is not designed to solve the problems it creates. A problem solved is a political chess piece off the table and requires progress into improving other aspects of (admittedly domestic) US policy. A market gap eliminated is a market gap unavailable to be monetised.
If the system cannot provide what it purports to want, but others can, then it is by definition failing. After that it’s socialism or barbarism.
Edit: anticapitalism is the easy part. The hard part is setting up the anticapitalism in a framework that lends itself to seeking an effective alternative (demonstrated by the examples in AES), as opposed to whatever brand of fascism gets its claws in first be it ancapism, nazism or ecofascism.
In very broad terms, too, this is the route that I took to get here and unfortunately it appears more clean cut in hindsight. There will be roadblocks along the way (Libertarianism e.g. ‘Yes, China has a higher living standard in PPP terms but they live under a dictatorship, give me liberty or give me death’ or reformism/electoralism are two major ones, but pressing the line that effective systems already exist that are doing what people want is what cuts through, imo.)